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I think you said that you believe the car is running rich. It actually sounds very lean. Back in the day on carbureted applications, you always knew which cylinder was running lean. Just aim a pyrometer at the primary tubes and the one that was the hottest was the leanest. If lean enough the exhaust headers will "glow in the dark". What is AFR right now or can you measure it?

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Im pretty sure its the opposite, the manifolds go read from running rich or having the timing retarded.

I would double check your MAF to make sure it has a built in IAT sensor. I'd also have your mechanic give vortech a call and walk him through how to adjust the bypass correctly. If its not bypassing the air, its bouncing of the impeller blades which will cause excess heat.

Founding Member

Lean creates the heat. Its like on the new GT500's. If the exhaust starts running hot, instead of pulling timing, they dump extra fuel to cool things down. Trust me, its a lean condition caused by lack of fuel. What type of fuel delivery system do you have and what size injectors? It is possible that the car is pig rich at idle, which is why you are smelling fuel.

When you do a plug check at the drag strip, you never want to do it after driving back to the pits. At the end of the pass, you shut down and check the plugs, to get an accurate reading. The car may be pig rich at idle, so it would give you a false reading.

I would look at the PMAS Blow thru MAF if you are looking at a new one. I have heard a lot of great things about it. It uses the 05+ style maf and the install looks very clean.

deff talk to your tuner about the IAT issue... that plug doesnt seem right to me.

If you look at your MAF harness and have six wires going to the plug, but only the middle four are used on the MAF, thats your problem. The outer 2 wires are your IAT wires with the stock MAF (IF you have an 01-04 GT that is....).

i checked out the maf and it seem like the stock plug is pluged right into the abaco maf. it dont look like there any unused wires but i will take a closer look again later. i asked him he said there were six. then he stated that everything is together right and its not the tune. then he asks me if anyone is using the paxton intercooler because the pipes are so close to the engine. i told him others use it with sucess. the cooler pipe stays cool so the sooler is working but he thinks it might not be cooling th air enough.

he also says that on the dyno the car temp is fine. it seems to only get hot under normal driving conditions. even then the car dont act up until i get home and shut it off. then it seems like all the heat acumulates because when i try to turn it on again an hour later the idel starts acting up. so he thinks the engine heat is heating the underhood temp and the air charge.

he also reccomend that i put the black plastic strip that mounts to the bottom of the rad iator back on because it deflects air up in the engine. it was off because of the bofy kit. so i found it and it will go back on.

he also suggested that it could even be the steeda splitter not getting air properly to the cooler and engine. i will remove it if i have to just to see if it then runs right.

i dont know he has a lot of ideas that he thinks might be messing witht the air charge temp but i dont know if they would really make a difference.
what do you guys think

this is my first graph when we only ran it to 5500rpm and made 423 hp. i dont know if he changed anything when he ran it to 5800 and and made 502rwhp, but i dont think so. i assume the a/f was tha same.

You want your AFR to be under 12, so if its 11.92, I would say its fine.

Can you take some pictures of the MAF and harness? I know your harness running to the car should have 6 wires, but I would like to see the connection on the MAF harness. Unplug the MAF and see how many contact prongs it has. The picture on their web site shows it as only having four.

I dont have any of the black plastic around my radiator (sides or bottom) and mine runs fine, not hot at all (and its 100 degrees here). You might look at making your fans come on a lot sooner. I have mine setup to come on at the lowest setting the xcal2 allows.

If your car was running that pig rich and causing all these problems you would see it on the dyno. Are you getting any check engine lights?

Founding Member

After looking at the dyno sheet, the tune looks great. 11.90 pretty much across the board. Nice straight line. No weird spikes. MAF counts look good. Nowhere near saturation. 60 pond injectors and the cobra pumps will easily support the power.
What thermostat is in the car?

im talking about the plastic fin looking thing that is hanging down under the car. i think i can almost see yours in your sig behind the mach piece.

anyway, ill see if i can take another look at the maf iat set up.

he tunes a lot of these supercharged cars so id assume that the a/f is right. there might be something else wrong in the tune, but i dont know what else could cause the high underhood temps. he keeps saying that the engine temp is not that high but the under hood and air charge temp is, so he thinks its an air flow issue and wants to remove the steeda front clip now to see if that helps.

he thinks that the steeda clip is closed too much and blocking air to the intercooler and the engine. do you guys think this is possible? sounds far fetched to me.

Founding Member

Its possible that by adding a "chin spoiler" to direct the air into the heat exchanger would help. I would suggest that if you do that, also ad a baffle on the top of the heat exchanger to direct the air straight in and through.

yea, i think the bypass is working. he has had it on different settings. he said he put it back to stock and the car was doing the same thing. so i guess that takes one idea out of the equasion. so now hes on the the air flow idea. i guess the splitter is blocking some air. it only has a small opening in front of the intercooler. i was going to swith to the roush stage 3 anyway just didnt plan it so soon. however, im just curious if the splitter could actually increasing underhood temp. he also was saying something about my hood, but the hood is a heat extracting hood.